1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an article holder for holding an article such as a vessel and for positioning the article in a vessel treatment process, etc., in which filling and capping operations are executed.
2. Description of the Related Art
A background article holder has an article holding member for holding an article in a horizontal direction. A change in a lateral cross sectional shape of the article is dealt with by changing the article holding shape formed by the article holding member (see Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 4-279496).
However, the above background article holder cannot deal with a change in a height of an article. Rather, the change of height of the article is dealt with by preparing a new article holder or altering the filling treatment apparatus.
In view of the above circumstances, the present applicant discloses an article holder capable of dealing with a change in a height of an article in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open Nos. 10-194388 and 11-245996.
FIGS. 4 and 8 of Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publications No. 10-194388 illustrate that vessels having different heights are dealt with by changing a height of sheaths by inserting and removing members 13 and 14 of FIG. 8. However, this process is difficult to handle vessels having a different height by production equipment such as a filling machine, a capper, etc., which must be adjusted in a height direction.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 11-245996 discloses an article holder including parent and child sheaths to handle articles having different heights. However, the child sheath must be replaced for each different type of vessel. An extra space is also required to store the child sheaths.